College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.
College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China; Key Laboratory of Plant Nutrition and the Agro-environment in Northwest China, Ministry of Agriculture, Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China.
Sci Total Environ. 2021 Feb 20;756:143857. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.143857. Epub 2020 Nov 20.
Microplastic pollution has aroused great concern in inland waters. Freshwater is the transport routes and potential sources for plastic fragments to the oceans. However, information especially about the occurrence of microplastics in freshwater systems is unclear in certain key areas. This work studied the distribution and characteristics for microplastics in the downstream area of West River. Both sediment and surface water detected microplastics with abundance ranging from 2560 to 10,240 items/kg and 2.99 to 9.87 items/L, respectively. Small size (<0.5 mm) and fiber were the main size and type in both surface waters and sediments. Polypropylene, polyethylene, polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride and polyethylene terephthalate were the polymer types of microplastics, as identified using a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. In addition, findings here might be in consideration of studying about the distribution of microplastics and the degree to which they were influenced by the use of land. In descending order, the highest microplastics abundance was observed in commercial/public/recreational > residential > industrial > natural areas. Our results indicate the occurrence of high abundance microplastics in river impacted by human activities, and suggest that spatial distribution of microplastics varies between different land use areas.
微塑料污染在内陆水域引起了极大关注。淡水是塑料碎片向海洋运输的途径和潜在来源。然而，在某些关键地区，有关淡水系统中微塑料的发生情况的信息尤其不清楚。本研究调查了西江下游地区微塑料的分布和特征。沉积物和地表水均检测到微塑料，丰度分别为 2560 至 10240 个/千克和 2.99 至 9.87 个/升。在地表水和沉积物中，主要的粒径和类型均为小粒径（<0.5mm）和纤维。使用傅里叶变换红外光谱仪鉴定了微塑料的聚合物类型为聚丙烯、聚乙烯、聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯、聚氯乙烯和聚对苯二甲酸丁二醇酯。此外，本研究结果可能需要进一步研究微塑料的分布及其受土地利用影响的程度。按微塑料丰度降序排列，商业/公共/娱乐>住宅>工业>自然区的丰度最高。我们的结果表明，受人类活动影响的河流中存在大量微塑料，表明微塑料在不同土地利用区的空间分布存在差异。
